HL2/Steam and LAN?

[Srekel]

Does someone know if it will be possible to legally play HL2 (or HL2 mods) on a LAN even if everybody does not own a copy of the game?

A lot of games have this "feature" (mainly RTSs I think) and it is actually quite an important thing, imo. I'm going to buy HL2 but I won't expect everyone I'm gonna invite to LANs to have a legal copy of it, and so the solution would have to be one of these:

1) We play another game than HL2 + mods
2) The ones that don't own it download a warezed copy
3) There is some kind of support for "non-owners" to play it in a LAN, with a requirement like "for each legal copy, another copy may play" or something along those lines.

Of course, there is:
4) The ones that don't own it, buy it. But a lot of people can't afford it or don't want to spend money on something they'll only play at LANs.


So, does anyone know about this?
What are your opinions?

 

[Chris D]

As with any other HL2 game, single player or multiplayer, each person playing has to have their own account.

Only one person can be logged onto an account at a time, therefore for each player, they each need to have an individual account.

This is the same way it works for cybercafes. Cybercafe owners need to pay for each individual computer that has a copy of Steam games on it.

Unfortunately, all people at a LAN will be required to own a copy of the game.

 

[Harryz]

This is the same way it works for cybercafes. Cybercafe owners need to pay for each individual computer that has a copy of Steam games on it.

Wow, that will work out to be quite expensive, I doubt they'll be making much profit out of that. Wouldn't the cafes get the product at a significant discount?

 

[Srekel]

Ok.

 

[Chris D]

Wow, that will work out to be quite expensive, I doubt they'll be making much profit out of that. Wouldn't the cafes get the product at a significant discount?

They pay a set monthly fee.

There's a special cybercafe program. Eligible cybercafes specify how many Steam licences they want. For each Steam licence they pay $10/month, but that Steam licence will get them all of the Valve titles "free" as they are released. I believe they are also eligible for receiving promotional and marketing stuff to put up around their cybercafe.

Also included in the package is the Cafe Administration Server, which I believe is a special Steam client that will automatically collect new updates (no restarting necessary AFAIK). This client is the only one that gets the update files (to save bandwidth) and then distributes it via the internal network to the other Steam clients.

I believe it can also limit the amount of licences being used in the cafe. For example, if a cafe has 20 machines - but the cafe owner only wants 5 licences, the Steam client will be available on all machines in the cafe, but the CAS will only allow five of the machines to be using Steam at one time.

I believe there's a few cafe owners that lurk around the forums, so please do correct me if I have any of that information wrong

 

[Inanimate]

You´ve got to have a single copy for every machine, thats the rule and it´s always been like that..

 

[JimmehH]

You´ve got to have a single copy for every machine, thats the rule and it´s always been like that..

I remember that in HL1 you could play on a LAN with the same key.

I might just be going senile though.

 

[aeroripper]

You´ve got to have a single copy for every machine, thats the rule and it´s always been like that..

it hasn't always been like that. Games like starcraft could spawn multiplayer copies on however many machines you wanted, but IIRC every 1 out of 3 players had to have a cd in the drive... i think TA did this too.

I suppose "officially" you were supposed to have a seperate copy of games for each computer, but you could play LAN on the same cdkey. Nowadays that is pretty rare and most games now have to have a copy for each person on a lan.

Honestly i still like the multiplayer only spawn like starcraft had or was that diablo?

 

[Chris D]

I remember that in HL1 you could play on a LAN with the same key.

I might just be going senile though.

Yep, you're right, but you were never legally allowed to.

With Steam though, it is impossible to do this unless every player owns a legit copy of the game you want to play.

 

[dbsynergy]

Yep, you're right, but you were never legally allowed to.

With Steam though, it is impossible to do this unless every player owns a legit copy of the game you want to play.

Actually, through experiance we found out that you are only allowed to have 8 people play with the same cdkey on a lan with HL1. The 9th person that joined will get the "this cdkey is already in use" error.

 

[Adminslimited]

It might be possible admins.
It all depends on the CD version
Remember, when dealing with a CD. It is unlikely that it will be required to have steam installed and with a username. bla bla bla
What if we don't have a modem? if so, valve could get sued.

However, if you want to play with friends. GET YOUR OWN KEY! however, when playing on a LAN. It isn't really possible to change your key. So, if valve makes HL2 so problems like that would occur. then we would be forced to make hacks to bypass it.
But, the steam username when dealing with online gameplay is GREAT. great job valve. Just don't screw up our lan game play to make a few extra dollars.

 

[Tiddalick]

Actually, through experiance we found out that you are only allowed to have 8 people play with the same cdkey on a lan with HL1. The 9th person that joined will get the "this cdkey is already in use" error.

Are you sure? I remember holding a lan here and after 4 people it wanted a different CD-Key

 

[FISKER_Q]

They pay a set monthly fee.

There's a special cybercafe program. Eligible cybercafes specify how many Steam licences they want. For each Steam licence they pay $10/month, but that Steam licence will get them all of the Valve titles "free" as they are released. I believe they are also eligible for receiving promotional and marketing stuff to put up around their cybercafe.

Also included in the package is the Cafe Administration Server, which I believe is a special Steam client that will automatically collect new updates (no restarting necessary AFAIK). This client is the only one that gets the update files (to save bandwidth) and then distributes it via the internal network to the other Steam clients.

I believe it can also limit the amount of licences being used in the cafe. For example, if a cafe has 20 machines - but the cafe owner only wants 5 licences, the Steam client will be available on all machines in the cafe, but the CAS will only allow five of the machines to be using Steam at one time.

I believe there's a few cafe owners that lurk around the forums, so please do correct me if I have any of that information wrong

It is also possible to get the xbox games with the same license.

Plus you get pretty good support, and you can get a lot of promotional stuff.

I hope they make similar stuff for regular steam users.

 

[dbsynergy]

Are you sure? I remember holding a lan here and after 4 people it wanted a different CD-Key

This was years ago before CS was out and we were all playing TFC. They may have changed things since then but im abolutely sure it was 8 players when we tried it.